A typical implementation of Embedio’s hybridization technology, consists of three elements:

1. A “primary” operating system – typically, but not necessarily, a general purpose operating system (GPOS) that will be “hybridized” by the addition of other, functionally motivated, “secondary” kernels.  This kernel is referred to as the primary kernel while all other kernels are referred to as secondary kernels. However there is not implied superiority or priority among kernels.  This operating system, after the addition of one or more secondary kernel hybridization modules,  may also be referred to as the “hybridized” operating system.
2. Embedio Duet™ RTE (Run Time Engine) which runs as a module of the hybridized operating system providing the abstraction layer for hardware resources as well as mechanisms for integrating secondary kernels. The Duet RTE provides mechanism for execution of tasks on secondary kernel(s) and resource sharing among kernels.
3. A “secondary” kernel – one or more functionally selected kernels that must be integrated with the primary kernel using Duet RTE.  Each secondary kernel has its own scheduler, interrupt handler, task manager, inter-process communication mechanisms and memory management.

Features of Duet RTE include:

• Small footprint (34KB in one of the product implementations).
• Low overhead task model for overhead/high performance execution.
• Task Management (including scheduler).
• Synchronization and Communication Management: Inter-task communication, semaphores, event flags, mailboxes, and message buffers.
• Time management (timer support).
• I/O Support.
• System management functions.
• Highly efficient data sharing and communication model for sharing data among primary and auxiliary kernels.

“iTRON HM”: A Duet enabled real time hybridization module

The iTRON hybridization module (“HM”) for Linux is an implementation of a Duet enabled hybrid operating system using a Linux kernel as the primary kernel and an iTRON kernel for high performance real time capabilities.

The iTRON HM for Linux provides a full continuum of real-time execution, from hard real-time (HRT) (guaranteed deadline) to soft real-time (SRT) and non real-time (NRT) even within a single application where some of the tasks may be running under real-time kernel and others may be running under non real-time kernel. An application developer can develop a User Interface using graphics libraries in Linux, use the Linux network stack and take advantage of iTRON real-time APIs for parts of the application that require deterministic execution.  Furthermore, any legacy code developed using iTRON can be easily integrated with the Linux application.

The iTRON HM for Linux is available on Renesas SH3 & SH4 processors, several ARM9 core based processors and on TI DaVinci 644x processors.